With recent advances in the field of neonatology (care of the newborn), a need for providing and maintaining a fresh and safe supply of blood for infants has been recognized, particularly very small premature infants whose lungs are insufficiently developed to maintain them without the aid of a respirator. Those infants, relying on the respirator to breath, require frequent tests in which minerals and oxygen levels in the blood are monitored. With such frequent drawing of blood, the premature infants quickly become anemic as their bone marrow cannot replace the blood at the rate at which it is lost.
Control of the anemia requires a continuous supply of blood of the appropriate type for administration to the infant in small doses, typically about only 10-30 ml for infants from 1 to up to 3 kg, over the period of hospitalization. For some infants, such controls over anemia must be maintained over prolonged periods according to hospital stays of up to several months.
However, up to now, the standard adult donation has consisted of 450 ml donations, greatly exceeding the premature infant's needs for any one transfusion. Thus, as blood over six days old is often considered unsatisfactory, care for such infants often necessitated wastage of blood due to the far lesser volumes of blood required by the infant per transfusion. Moreover, for those infants undergoing prolonged hospitalization, the potential for wastage of blood becomes extreme. Thus, systems were devised to provide blood for many infants within the nursery from a particular donor as such donor became available. After approximately six days, or exhaustion of this first blood supply, a new donor was required to be called to provide new supplies of blood for the infants. It is apparent that these systems have the disadvantage that many infants requiring prolonged hospitalizations may have received blood from possibly twenty-five different adult donors. Such greatly increased donor exposure, in turn, subjected these infants to heightened risks of allergic reactions or increased risks of exposure to hepatitis, viral infections or immune dysfunction.
U.S. Pat. No. Re. 25,129 generally recognizes the problems appurtenant to the obtaining and handling of human whole blood and particularly addresses one important problem concerning maintaining a blood supply for infants. In an effort to provide infant-sized doses, the patentee discloses a multiple compartmented bag for use in pediatric practice. The pediatric bag includes a sealed-in delivery tube for each compartment and common inlet for receiving a single adult donation of blood. The adult donation is thereby divided into five or more infant-size infusion quantities. Each of the compartments may be sealed and cut apart from the others to form self-contained bag units. However, for a 1 kg premature infant or even infants up to 2 or 3 kgs who require from only 10 to 30 ml of packed red cells, it may take up to one month or more to use up the volume of blood received from the original adult donation, while any capsules of blood remaining unused after six days might be considered unsatisfactory.
It is also known in the art to employ an apparatus including a primary reservoir bag and secondary bags for sterilely separating whole blood into its desired constituents. Thus, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,332,122, blood is collected into a primary receiving container and broken down into its constituent parts by freezing, centrifuging or other known means, after which the constituent parts may be individually transferred to secondary containers by means of a transfer tubing network.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,079,919 discloses parenteral solution equipment having a plurality of serology tubes which are filled with the donated blood so that the blood type and character can be checked prior to administration. It is suggested therein to provide the serology tube as an integral part of the main blood storage container so that the tube is always associated with the blood throughout the effective life of the blood.